Voices and influences
Jerome
The scholar who went to the Hebrew itself and gave the West a Bible it read for a thousand years.
Summary
This site quotes Jerome 2,794 times across 57 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 420.
- Quoted here most in Matthew: 558 of 2,794.
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Jerome
- Lived
- died 420
- Tradition
- Patristic
5 of 2,794 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Jerome died in 420 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
(Chapter 49, verse 3) Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength and the first of my sons, tough in bearing and tough in insolence and injury, like water that does not boil.
The rest of the quotation
You went up on your father's bed, then you defiled it when you went up. In Hebrew it is written: Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength, and the first in power among my sons. Greater in carrying, and greater in strength. You are poured out like water, do not exceed. For you have ascended the bed of your father and defiled the couch in his ascent.
Genesis 49:3 Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, excelling in honor, excelling in power. BSB
But we your people and the sheep of your pasture. When he says "sheep," he signifies innocence. Sheep have nothing but a shepherd. We will give you thanks forever. We will confess: either we do penance, or, what is better, we glorify.
The rest of the quotation
From generation to generation; among the first people, and among the second people. Although according to the historical sense it is said otherwise in Ezekiel, nevertheless according to the spiritual understanding we say this, since these two peoples — that is, the two rods — are joined together in Ezekiel, and become one kingdom.
Psalms 79:13 Then we Your people, the sheep of Your pasture, will thank You forever; from generation to generation we will declare Your praise. BSB
I have become like the pelican of the wilderness. There are said to be two kinds of these birds.
The rest of the quotation
One lives in the waters, and its food is fish; and one lives in the wilderness, and its food is venomous creatures, that is, serpents and crocodiles and lizards. Now these birds are called in Latin 'onocrotali.' To that one therefore have I become like, which lives in the wilderness, which eats venomous creatures: that is, my food was to me as it were poison. I have become like the night-raven in its dwelling-place.
Psalms 102:6 I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. BSB
"Be exalted above the heavens, O God." God is not exalted except above the heavens, he is not exalted above the earth. When we are earthly, we do not exalt God; but if from earthly we have been made heavenly, then we exalt God.
The rest of the quotation
And our Lord, when he was on earth, did not exalt us. Someone may say: You speak rashly, since he himself says in the Gospel: "When I have been lifted up, I will draw all things to myself."
Psalms 108:5–6 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth. Respond and save us with Your right hand, that Your beloved may be delivered. BSB
Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion. Just now we heard the holy presbyter preaching that, because of its transgression of the law, the Jewish people has been forsaken; and how is it that now it is said, Praise the Lord, O…
The rest of the quotation
Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion? Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Jerusalem, "vision of peace." Praise your God, O Zion. Zion is interpreted "watchtower." You see, then, what he says: Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem. Wherever there is a vision of peace, wherever there is contemplation of God, there let there be praise of God.
Psalms 147:12 Exalt the LORD, O Jerusalem; praise your God, O Zion! BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Jerome 2,794 times across 57 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Eusebius Hieronymus was born about 347 at Stridon, a town on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia that no longer exists. His parents were Christians with money. They sent him to Rome, where he studied grammar and rhetoric under the great teacher Donatus, collected pagan authors, and was baptized in his late teens. He traveled east, and about 375 went into the desert of Chalcis, southeast of Antioch, to live as a hermit. He lasted a few years. He hated the heat, quarreled with the monks over the Trinity, and — by his own account — hired a converted Jew to teach him Hebrew, largely to keep his mind off Rome. That decision changed the history of the Bible in the West. Ordained at Antioch, he went on to Constantinople, where he heard Gregory of Nazianzus, and then in 382 to Rome, where Pope Damasus made him a secretary and set him to revising the Latin Gospels against the Greek. In Rome he also became teacher to a circle of wealthy Christian women — Marcella, Paula, and Paula's daughter Eustochium — who studied Scripture and Hebrew with him. His scorn for the worldly Roman clergy was returned with interest, and after Damasus died in 384 he left the city for good. In 386 he settled at Bethlehem, where Paula founded monasteries for men and women and paid for his books. He stayed thirty-four years, working in a cave beside the traditional site of the Nativity. There he did the thing he is known for. Instead of correcting the old Latin against the Greek Septuagint, he translated the Old Testament out of the Hebrew — going to Jewish teachers for help, arguing that the Hebraica veritas, the Hebrew truth, was the standard. Augustine wrote to warn him that congregations would riot over changed familiar words, and in North Africa one did. Jerome kept going. He also wrote commentaries on most of the prophets, on Matthew and several letters of Paul, a catalogue of Christian writers, letters that were copied and read as literature, and translations of Origen and Eusebius. He was a savage controversialist. He broke publicly with his oldest friend Rufinus over Origen, attacked Jovinian, Vigilantius, and Pelagius in print, and lost few opportunities to wound. In 410 refugees from the sack of Rome arrived at his door and he wrote that the light of the world had gone out. Paula died in 404, Eustochium in 419. Jerome died at Bethlehem in 420. His translation, gathered later with other Latin books into what came to be called the Vulgate, was the Bible of Western Europe until the Reformation and remained the Roman Catholic standard far beyond it. Sources: Jerome, Letters and De viris illustribus; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church; the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, second series volume 6; the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia.
2,794 quotations across 57 books
Where this voice is quoted
The one who quarries stones may be injured by them, and he who splits logs endangers himself.
“"He who moves about stones will be hurt by them; he who splits logs will be endangered by them. "In Zechariah sacred stones are moved about the earth. [Cfr. Zach. 9, 16.]”
If the axe is dull and the blade unsharpened, more strength must be exerted, but skill produces success.
“"If a blade is blunt and one has not sharpened the edge, nevertheless it strengthens the warriors. Wisdom is a more powerful skill.”
The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious, but the lips of a fool consume him.
“"The words of a wise man win favour, but a fool's lips devour him. "Foolishness, if it is happy in its rusticity, will know less evil.”
The beginning of his talk is folly, and the end of his speech is evil madness. Yet the fool multiplies words.
“"His talk begins as foolishness and ends as evil madness. The fool prates on and on, but man does not know what will be; and who can tell him what will be after him?”
The toil of a fool wearies him, for he does not know the way to the city.
“"The toil of fools exhausts them, as one who does not know the way to town. "Join these lines with the verse above; either to those verses that speak in general about fools, who know not God, or in particular to that one which argues…”
Woe to you, O land whose king is a youth, and whose princes feast in the morning.
“"Woe to you, O land, whose king acts as an adolescent, and whose ministers dine in the morning. Happy are you, O land, whose king is a man of dignity, and whose ministers dine at the proper time- in strength and not in drunkenness.”
Through laziness the roof caves in, and in the hands of the idle, the house leaks.
“"Through slothfulness the ceiling sags, and through idleness of the hands the house leaks." Our house, which is held up by the condition of mankind, even that abode that we have in heaven, sags if we are lazy and slow to do good work.”
Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.
“"Send your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it." He encourages to mercy since it must be given to all that seek wisdom, and work well.”
If the clouds are full, they will pour out rain upon the earth; whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls…
“"If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree falls toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall be.”
He who watches the wind will fail to sow, and he who observes the clouds will fail to reap.
“"He that observes the wind shall not sow; and he that regards the clouds shall not reap. "He who considers what is good for him and does not give out to all who ask him, often destroys what he ought to receive. [Cfr.”
on the day the keepers of the house tremble and the strong men stoop, when those grinding cease because they are few and those watching through windows see dimly,
“" In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves; "The keepers of the house can be interpreted as either the sun and the moon, and the remaining choir of stars, or the angels who keep…”
before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
“"Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."”